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Q. 72. What is justifying faith?
A. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation.
Zechariah 3:8–9
8 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. 9 For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day.
John 1:12
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
John 16:8–9
8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;
Acts 2:37
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Acts 4:12
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Acts 10:43
43 To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Acts 15:11
11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
Acts 16:30
30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Acts 16:31
31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Romans 6:6
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Romans 10:14–17
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
1 Corinthians 1:21
21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
1 Corinthians 12:3
3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 4:13
13 Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak,
Ephesians 1:13
13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
Ephesians 1:17–19
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might
Ephesians 2:1
2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Philippians 3:9
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Hebrews 10:39
39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.
Hebrews 11:13
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
1 Peter 1:2
2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:
May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Welcome to the Reformed Standard. I'm Tony, let's get started. Question 72 of the Westminster Larger Catechism reads: What is justifying faith? The answer is: Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation.
This question is important up for a number of reasons. But in in more modern times, there's been a confusion in the reformed camp, about the order salute us and the relationship between faith, repentance and justification. And so this question here is clarifying or is articulating what it is exactly that faith. Faith is and what exactly it accomplishes. How How does it lay claim to the promises of Christ? How does it function to be the resting and receiving of salvation. And this is in Contra distinction to the so called lordship salvation position, which was articulated primarily by john MacArthur in the mid to late 90s, and has seen a bit of a resurgence in the young Calvinist movement. So I don't want to speak too strongly against against john MacArthur here. But it's important to recognize that the reformed tradition classically here, understand saving grace, not as submission or as obedience, but as resting and receiving. And so although we see here that it does include the concept of being convinced of sin and misery, the understanding of what repentance is, which comes later here in the Catechism is a different thing. And so john MacArthur the mistake he made during that controversy, was he overcorrected against the free grace or the non lordship teachers. And he actually collapsed the definition of repentance into the definition of faith. And so here instead, we see that what faith is, is a saving grace which the Spirit of God by the word of God creates in our hearts. And so as a result of that faith, or as an act of that faith, we are convinced of our sin and misery. We talked about earlier how effectual calling includes the the giving of certain kinds of knowledge, certain factual and intellectual knowledge that we then assent to.
And so this is a recognition that we are sinners, that we're in a condition of misery, and that we have a disability in ourselves, to recover ourselves out of that condition. So repentance, as we'll see, when we get to question 76, includes something that falls much more accurately under the heading of sanctification, but even there, it doesn't quite fit. And so justification or justifying faith here includes those three things, a knowledge of our sin, a knowledge of our misery, or our miserable estates and the disability to recover ourselves. And then because of that, we not only assent to the truth of the promise of the gospel, right, there's this classic three fold understanding of what faith is, there's a scent to the knowledge or the factual elements of the gospel, right, we have to have a content to our faith, but there's also a receiving and arresting of Christ or upon Christ and His righteousness. So in addition to this knowledge of the facts of the gospel, the knowledge of redemptive history, there's also an understanding of the fact that these these redemptive facts have significance that they have an intention. Right, there's a scent, there's knowledge, and then there's fiduciary. And that's the final part of faith, which is to not only believe, to not even know what the facts are, to believe the truth of the facts, but to believe the truth of the facts for me. And so it's not enough just to know that Jesus died for sinners. It's not enough just to believe that Jesus died for sinners, but you have to believe that you are a sinner in need of salvation, and that Christ died for you. And so in that knowledge of that truth and that acceptance of that truth, that there is a promise held forth for the pardon of sins, the accepting and accounting of righteousness on our behalf in the sight of God, and what we what we receive in salvation, is Christ Himself and all His benefits. And so justifying Faith is the means or the mechanism, or the channel by which those saving promises are received by us and on which we rest upon Christ and all of his righteousness.